Seeing cold, eating warm: Effects of imaginative storytelling and immersive virtual reality winter environments on food perception

Abstract

Consumer studies have demonstrated that the context of the environment affects the type of food being chosen. In this regard, both immersive Virtual Reality (VR) and more traditional media (e.g., text-based storytelling) can present environmental cues contextualized in real-life situations. However, to what extent these methods are effective in forming contextually congruent scenes for food perception research remains unclear. This study aimed to evaluate whether exposure to winter environmental cues via immersive VR or reading-guided imaginative (storytelling) conditions can induce the desire for high-calorie foods. A total of 117 participants were randomly assigned to VR (a VR-generated winter forest environment), storytelling (a winter forest environment described with text), and control groups (without any environmental cues) respectively. They viewed eight common food items with low or high-calorie densities and rated their liking, desires, and familiarity for each food item. The results showed that compared to the control group, both VR and storytelling were comparably effective in inducing contextually content-congruent desire and liking (higher desire and liking for high-calorie foods in a winter environment). This suggests that such low-tech, low-immersion storytelling techniques based on text may be effective in simulating contextual information for inducing realistic food-related perceptions and emotions. Additionally, participants in the VR group reported higher levels of desire and familiarity with all foods and stronger spatial presence than those in other groups, implying the unique benefits of VR in producing greater vividness, interactivity, and dynamics when simulating food/eating situations.